With inflation reaching crazy levels (8.8% in July for the Chicago metro area,) the 5% hike would have kicked in. However, Mayor Lori Lightfoot revealed the new budget cuts the 5% rate in half, to 2.5%. “A homeowner with a house value at, say, $250,000 will pay an additional $34 a year, and to put that in terms that I can understand, that’s about the price of an Al’s Italian beef, hot, dipped, with extra cheese, for a family of four,” Lightfoot said. Although, according to Zillow, the average home value in Chicago is higher than $250,000 at $320,442.

“How finished with Chicago – and how optimistic on Florida – is Citadel’s Ken Griffin? He’s $1 billion sure.”

With still six months to go before members of the Chicago City Council face voters again, nearly a fifth of its 50 incumbents have already decided for themselves that it’s time to leave. And major players — such as the Chicago Teachers Union, which helped elect a wave of progressives to the 2019 council — are eying the vacancies as an opportunity to pick up even more power.

In 2021, the Lightfoot-era pay boxes brought in $5.44 million, according to the city, and so far in 2022, the city said, the parking meters installed since Lightfoot took office have generated $8.5 million. Finance Department spokeswoman Rose Tibayan said the money raised by the new meters does not represent an additional tax burden on Chicagoans because the city will use it to make contractual payments to Chicago Parking Meters LLC for the cost of parking spots taken out of service for festivals, street repairs and other reasons.

What happens if Lightfoot is reelected?“ If you put this lady back in charge, all hell is going to truly break loose,” Thornton says. “You think we’re in hell now? If we put her back in office, the city is doomed.”